Pasting of serialnumber over multiple textfields

Question

In my application users can upgrade their product (from trial to full) using a 32 characters serialnumber.

To make it as user friendly as possible for my (paying) customers I would like to be able to copy and paste the serial.

I want my customers to place the cursor in the first field under license and when the user pastes the 32 chars license I want it to fill all the fields.

I don't know where to start so if you can point me in the right direction that would be great.

I've never seen the benefit of separate boxes. IMO just use one box; no more problem. Perhaps add dashes automatically during manual entry (or indeed automatic/paste). — Marc Gravell, Nov 06 '11 at 17:29
This question - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1156975/copy-paste-event-listener-in-c-sharp has some information about setting up a clipboard event listener in c#. It looks quite involved though. — ipr101, Nov 06 '11 at 17:32
@Marc Gravell: If you have never seen a benifit of separate boxes. Try readability for the user. — PeeHaa, Nov 06 '11 at 17:34
I do second Marc's opinion. I like it the way several programs do it by adding hyphens automatically. E.g. the text field on http://join.me even does this using JavaScript. — Uwe Keim, Nov 06 '11 at 17:39
@UweKeim: noted. However let's focus on my question in stead of changing the topic :D — PeeHaa, Nov 06 '11 at 17:41
possible duplicate of [Override Paste Into TextBox](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7852509/override-paste-into-textbox) — Hans Passant, Nov 06 '11 at 17:59
On a more serious note - I've entered plenty of serial numbers over the years. The split ones are worst. Sometimes, they'll be almost as convenient as a single box. Most times they are simply horrendous from a usability perspective. The usability claim holds no water, IMO. — Marc Gravell, Nov 06 '11 at 18:24
@MarcGravell: last thing I want to say about this issue: The textfields act exactly like if it were 1 textfield. `Sometimes, they'll be almost as convenient as a single box` that's mine :) — PeeHaa, Nov 06 '11 at 18:30

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 06 '11 at 17:45

In the first textbox, I would put a large limit.

On the 'text changed', check the length. If the change is greater than 4 (your maximum). Delete the extra stuff and spread it over your textboxes.

If you copy-paste, it'll text change of 32, and it would work. You could also change the cursor (I think its .Focus() but I could be wrong) so it automatically 'hops' between the boxes.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 06 '11 at 17:40

2

You could just hook up into the text changed event of the first textbox, and trim & split the pasted text into, groups of 4, and set the text of the other textboxes.

Pretty straightforward, and should "just work".

answered Nov 06 '11 at 17:40

Can Poyrazoğlu

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score 2 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:51

You can override WndProc to capture the paste event (Windows message). Then simply take the pasted text, and copy into the textboxes. Full example, heavily inspired by this answer:

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace SOPasteTextBox
{
    public class ClipboardEventArgs : EventArgs
    {
        public string ClipboardText { get; set; }
        public ClipboardEventArgs(string clipboardText)
        {
            ClipboardText = clipboardText;
        }
    }

    class PasteAwareTextBox : TextBox
    {
        public event EventHandler<ClipboardEventArgs> Pasted;

        private const int WM_PASTE = 0x0302;
        protected override void WndProc(ref Message m)
        {
            if (m.Msg == WM_PASTE)
            {
                var evt = Pasted;
                if (evt != null)
                {
                    evt(this, new ClipboardEventArgs(Clipboard.GetText()));
                }
                return;
            }

            base.WndProc(ref m);
        }
    }

    static class Program
    {
        private static PasteAwareTextBox[] _textBoxes;

        /// <summary>
        /// The main entry point for the application.
        /// </summary>
        [STAThread]
        static void Main()
        {
            var mainForm = new Form();
            _textBoxes = Enumerable.Range(0, 8).Select(x => new PasteAwareTextBox() {Top = x*20}).ToArray();
            _textBoxes[0].Pasted += DoPaste;
            foreach (var box in _textBoxes)
            {
                mainForm.Controls.Add(box);
            }
            Application.Run(mainForm);
        }

        private static void DoPaste(object sender, ClipboardEventArgs e)
        {
            if (String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(e.ClipboardText))
                return;

            int i = 0;
            var text = e.ClipboardText.Split('-').Take(_textBoxes.Length);
            foreach (string part in text)
            {
                _textBoxes[i++].Text = part;
            }
        }
    }
}

Pasting of serialnumber over multiple textfields

3 Answers3

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